I work in pharma and I've advocated for directly training models that predict drug trial outcomes. I don't think we have the necessary support (data + algorithms) to produce accurate models in this space. I suspect that predicting drug trial outcomes is roughly isomorphic to understanding human biology at a fundamental level (and accepting that our existing models of how drugs work are extremely limited).
Agree, it is effectively understanding human biology - which we suck at, have little data on, have few good models for.
So, it doesn't appear there is any way to avoid the clinical trial process. And it won't speed up, and it won't get cheaper.
Am I wrong?